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Sunday, November 15, 2015

Today I'm super excited to help Elise unveil the cover of the third book in her Air Awakens series! If you're not yet familiar with the series here's a little about the first two books to get you acquainted~

A library apprentice, a sorcerer prince, and an unbreakable magic bond...

The Solaris Empire is one conquest away from uniting the continent, and the rare elemental magic sleeping in seventeen-year-old library apprentice Vhalla Yarl could shift the tides of war.

Vhalla has always been taught to fear the Tower of Sorcerers, a mysterious magic society, and has been happy in her quiet world of books. But after she unknowingly saves the life of one of the most powerful sorcerers of them all—the Crown Prince Aldrik—she finds herself enticed into his world. Now she must decide her future: Embrace her sorcery and leave the life she’s known, or eradicate her magic and remain as she’s always been. And with powerful forces lurking in the shadows, Vhalla’s indecision could cost her more than she ever imagined.

Soldier… Sorcerer… Savior… Who is Vhalla Yarl?Vhalla Yarl marches to war as property of the Solaris Empire. The Emperor counts on her to bring victory, the Senate counts on her death, and the only thing Vhalla can count on is the fight of her life. As she grapples with the ghosts of her past, new challenges in the present threaten to shatter the remnants of her fragile sanity. Will she maintain her humanity? Or will she truly become the Empire’s monster?

Now here is the cover!

Were you just staring in awe because I do every time I see it! Beautiful doesn't even cover it!!

A woman awoken in air, a soldier forged by fire, a weapon risen from blood.

Vhalla Yarl has made it to the warfront in the North. Forged by blood and fire, she has steeled her heart for the final battle of the Solaris Empire’s conquest. The choices before Vhalla are no longer servitude or freedom, they are servitude or death. The stakes have never been higher as the Emperor maintains his iron grip on her fate, holding everything Vhalla still has left to lose in the balance.

Below is a little Q&A with Elise and Meril, the artist behind all of these stunning covers!

Well, when I decided to self-publish I knew the cover art would be one of the most important things about my book, and I also knew I wanted drawn artwork over photography. I, personally, feel like it’s “iconic high-fantasy” to have a painted cover and so that’s what I began searching for. Also, as an indie author, I wanted to work with someone else who wasn’t a big cover art company and perhaps was just getting their start also. So I was thumbing through DeviantArt for illustrators I liked and I found Meril.

It was the image below that made me know I needed to work with her. It was like she’d already created something that I thought captured the essence of Air Awakens, even if the visuals I wanted were completely different.

Can you explain the process from the author’s perspective? How are covers made?

Well, I can only explain in my limited experience. It’s my understanding that traditional authors get little to no control over what their covers look like. For me, I started by sending Meril what had been my query letter and a handful of scenes I pulled out from the story. I also sent her the draft manuscript in case she wanted to find how a particular scene I’d chosen to pull out fit in. I’d been told that cover artists are too busy to read their client’s work in its entirety, so I wasn’t offended by the notion of just handing her some scenes.

To my surprise, Meril read it all. Talk about knowing you made the right choice as an author! I seriously count my blessings every day for this.

So, Meril reads my draft manuscripts (she’s usually among the very first to read them before my editor) and then she begins drafting thumbnails. These are very rough, quick sketches to give me an idea of the layout. She explains a bit of each, what she sees as the inspiration and story for each cover. From there we tweak them.

Tweaking can be everything from, “What if she’s holding…” to “I like the third and fifth sketch, can you try to merge them?”

This process can take anywhere from two days to a week, depending on how long I need to stare at them and how many changes are being made.

Following that, Meril moves onto the final sketch with a bit more detail. Once we’re certain we’re on the same page with the final direction she starts rendering. As an author this stage of the process is basically magic to me. Because she transforms (granted, an already amazing rough) into an even more amazing final illustration.

When she’s close to the final she sends it to me (by this point I’ve already poked her for updates because I’m way too excited not to) and we do any last-minute editing like color changes, softening lines, or adding small details.

Once all that is done she sends me the final illustration and I do the text layout on it. And, that’s how the Air Awakens covers come to life!

Artist Interview

What attracted you to doing the covers for the AIR AWAKENS series?

The AIR AWAKENS series was my very first book cover series. I’m not going to lie that I first took interest on the project because it was an opportunity for me to finally work on the book industry. Any artist starting out would be uncontrollably excited when offered a project as such. And THEN I read the story, read about the characters, got to know an amazing client and author, a friend, and so there lies my true answer. It was the perfect project for me, I loved the world, I loved the characters and I loved the idea behind it all. And so I wanted to make sure that I make it very special.

What’s one thing that you think would surprise people about the process of creating the AIR AWAKENS covers? Or, one thing people may not know?

Elise has always told me that she and her author friends never expect their artist to read the whole manuscript. And I read the whole thing because well, I just couldn’t help it. I have become very attached! She says I make the most ‘official-est’ fanart ever and I agree.

What is your favorite cover so far?

That’s hard to say. I loved all of it so far! (Or I’m being extremely biased, because well, I worked hard on all of them! haha) But if I’m being asked as an artist I would probably say the first cover. It was simple, straight to the point, saying, ‘Hey, this is Vhalla, the Heroine for this amazing world/story’. I like covers that has that iconic, unique feeling to it and so I would say that the first cover definitely did it for this series.

(Without any spoilers) What did you like about the third book in the AIR AWAKENS series: Earth’s End?

Earth’s End is my favorite of the 3 books so far and my main reason is that it felt like everything was coming down together, finally! Especially for Vhalla. I loved the Vhalla in this book. The character has developed into something much more and although she’s still probably transitioning, she’s finally getting there. In general what I liked about Earth’s End is that there’s more action, more storyline focused on Vhalla and her world, there were more things learned about the other characters too such as Baldair, among many others. Elise has outdone herself with this one.

Did you guys hear what Meril said about Earth's Ends? There's still so much to see in the world of Air Awakens and I cannot wait for more of everything! Meril is also sharing an in-depth look at her creation process so click on the picture below to see :D

About the Author

Elise Kova has always had a passion for storytelling. She wrote her first novella, a high-fantasy, in sixth grade. Over the years she’s honed her love of literature with everything from fantasy to romance, science fiction to mystery, and whatever else catches her eye.

Elise lives in Saint Petersburg, Florida, where she’s currently working on the next installment in her debut YA fantasy series: Air Awakens. She enjoys video games, anime, table-top role playing games, and many other forms of “geekdom.” She loves talking with fans on Twitter (@EliseKova) and Facebook. Visit her website, EliseKova.com, for news and extras about her books!

2 comments:

I adore the illustrated feel of these covers and although I still haven't started reading the books, I have bought the first one and preordered the second one and will surely be preordering the third one!Such gorgeous coverrrrs!!

Thank you for sharing and the giveaway! Fantastic interviews too Eileen!